


If You Want Me, Find Me

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice, Psych
Genre: Elusive Partners, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Old Friends, Older Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 07:28:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/353757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is elusive.  Henry is interested.  They met on a muddy field when they were teenagers, but now nothing they know will be governed by the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Want Me, Find Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afullmargin (anemptymargin)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anemptymargin/gifts).



> Written for afullmargin, who won me in fandomhelps

It was a strange way to meet anyone, but when they saw each other that night for the first time in what felt like a hundred years, they both knew it would be an undeniable moment. 

“It’s been a hundred years, right,” Sam cracked. Maybe longer, since Analee had faced Northwestern Pacific in the national quarter final. Sam had managed to crack a couple of Henry’s ribs that day – put him out for his senior year. Sam hadn’t done much better – a broken nose had kept him out of the semis. They’d seen each other at some awards banquet when they were both stupid, cocky and sixteen.

Just under forty years later, they ended up meeting again in the Santa Barbara police station. Sam was special forces, just about ready to head in for retirement; Henry had settled into his position as a detective with easy aplomb. Sam would be working for one of the junior detectives on a major sting operation and Henry would be working over him (something that Sam, much later, would rather loudly joke about in public).

There was back-slapping and laughter and a little show of ancient bravado. Wallets were pulled out of waterproof bags and pictures flashed around. Henry had a kid – Sam couldn’t really wrap his mind around that one – a grown-up kid who was backpacking around the world in the middle of a wild rebellion, and who hadn’t called Henry since Tonopah and was probably trying to hitchhike his way back to some kind of commune – however that worked with him. “Not surprised he decided to get away from you,” Sam joked. Before Henry could bite his head off, he quickly interjected, “You were one hell of a hardass back in the day. A couple of years of listening to you talk about the shoulds and shouldn’ts of life’d send any guy out on a spiritual quest.”

Henry found humor in that little statement, somehow. “And I bet you’re a real sweetheart to your kid. You have any of your own?” 

A quick flicker of regret glowed in Sam’s eyes. “I don’t have any of my own,” he said. “But I don’t feel like I missed out on much. I’ve got plenty of nieces and nephews.” He pointed to a couple of pictures of a large gathering, at which Sam was the focal point at the head of the table. It was a bunch of Navy SEALS and their kids, and they had all clustered around him, sharing a good laugh. “I’m a godfather five times over,” he smirked. “Got a lotta love in my life – all kinds.”

“Got a wife?”

There was the slightest cringe, but he recovered nicely. “Had one. It didn’t work out.” He raised an eyebrow and asked, “Shawn had a mom?”

“We were married for awhile,” he declared lightly. “She wanted a clean break. Shawn didn’t deal with it all that well.”

“Ahh. A sins of the father type of deal?”

“Sins and absolutions,” Henry shrugged. “The kid’s got some daddy issues.”

Sam snickered. “Hope he appreciates them. I know I wouldn’t mind calling some stud ‘daddy’ every day.”

Henry raised an eyebrow, but didn’t have time to peruse the comment. They were called off to a meeting, to another shot at saving Santa Barbara before it blew.

*** 

They headed out for some brews with a pile of unclassified documents, trying to build a strategy for their team out of nothing. One beer seemed to lead so easily into two, which ended with them dumped in a cab at the end of Henry’s driveway, making out like a couple of oversexed teenagers in their Hawaiian shirts.

The sex was messy and performed against a wall, filled with too much dirt and spit and pulling of minimal patches of hair to be tender, and lacking all of the edifice and art of something more wicked in intent. Somehow, Henry ended up on top of Sam, jerking his entire body against the rough stucco wall as had wild, near-violent sex. 

There was a bed – and they got there, as their knees and backs complained with a symphony of groaned creaking noises. Their minds ached along with their bodies and, without thinking, they curled up naked on opposite ends of the mattress.

“Do you smoke?” Sam asked.

“Nah,” Henry said.

“This is making me wish I hadn’t quit years ago,” Sam confessed.

Henry said nothing, but he gave a soft grunt. “We’re gonna spend a lotta hours trying not to talk about this,” Sam noted wryly. “You might wanna be more verbal.”

“Shut up,” Henry begged him. “Just gimmie tonight and we’ll talk about it later.”

Sam – easygoing as he was – didn’t fight him on that.

** 

They kept it as professional as humanly possible, refusing to discuss their one-night stand until they’d put away those drug traffickers for life. Happily relieved to be together at the end of a long day, they didn’t let those past feelings bubble up until they were behind closed doors.

“Look,” Sam began, “We’re both too old to go through the whole rigmarole of pretending what happened didn’t. So we had a good time together – it’s part of our history, and it isn’t anyone else’s business but ours.”

“How the hell can this be that easy for you?” Henry asked – but his pants were already making their descent down his thighs.

“I’m experienced, baby…” he smirked and patted the top of Henry’s head. “Don’t you still want me to call you daddy?”

Henry did. That was the toughest part of the undefined relationship they had discovered. What followed was less brutal than what had passed before, but was incredibly intense nonetheless.

Ultimately, he bent Sam over the bed and made him call him daddy for as long as he could. 

And he woke to an empty bed. Sam had left town without saying another word.

***

A few years later there was an envelope, marked and delivered from Miami. Inside, Henry found pictures of rolling ocean waves and a shot of a man in a panama hat, smirking, with one eyebrow raised.

The inscription was simple. “If you want me, find me.”

He took the first plane down.


End file.
